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The Postgenomic Politics of Race

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The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society

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Abstract

In this chapter I reflect on new trends in racial politics in the postgenomic age. I highlight the ways in which struggles over the characterization of race and the amelioration of racial inequality have come to be a driver of large-scale global research programs and science activism has come to stand in for mass activism. Drawing on the analysis of in-depth interviews with genomic elites and content analysis of the body of literature on race and genomics published from 1986–2010, I show how scientists take on the banner of racial activism but ultimately fail to bring about a politics that can aid and abet mass movements. Instead, these postgenomic developments reinscribe a deterministic understanding of race, one that supports racial essentialism and inequality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Because they are public intellectuals who are easily identifiable, I obtained their permission to report their statements with their names and titles.

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  1. UCSF, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Catherine Bliss

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  1. Catherine Bliss
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  1. Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Maurizio Meloni

  2. School of Management, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    John Cromby

  3. Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Des Fitzgerald

  4. Department of Anthropology, Laval University, Québec, Canada

    Stephanie Lloyd

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Bliss, C. (2018). The Postgenomic Politics of Race. In: Meloni, M., Cromby, J., Fitzgerald, D., Lloyd, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Biology and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_33

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52879-7_33

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